BEIRUT: As Syrian President Bashar al-Assad attempts to turn military success into postwar reconstruction, Western sanctions are a major obstacle that could scare off foreign companies.
Syria has suffered immense physical destruction, while millions of workers have fled, been conscripted or killed. A U.N. agency estimates the war has cost...

ISLAMABAD: Three-time Indian prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee has died, current leader Narendra Modi said Thursday of the ailing 93-year-old who had been hospitalised.
"Atal Ji's passing away is a personal and irreplaceable loss for me," Modi said in a tweet Thursday, using a Hindi-language honorific.
"It was Atal Ji's exemplary...

SEWARD, Alaska: Alaska fishermen are used to coping with fickle weather and wild ocean waves. Now they face a new challenge: the United States' trade war with China, which buys $1 billion in Alaskan fish annually, making it the state's top seafood export market.
Beijing, in response to the Trump...

DUBAI: Iran's Revolutionary Guards confirmed on Sunday it had held war games in the Gulf over the past several days, saying they were aimed at "confronting possible threats" by enemies, the state news agency IRNA reported.
U.S. officials told Reuters on Thursday that the United States believed Iran had started...

BEIJING: German carmaker BMW (BMWG.DE) said it will raise the prices of two U.S.-made crossover sport-utility vehicles in China to cope with the additional cost of tariffs on U.S. car imports into the world's biggest auto market.
In a move due to take effect on Monday, BMW said in a...

NABI SALEH, West Bank: A Palestinian teenager released by Israel on Sunday after completing a prison term for kicking and slapping an Israeli soldier said she wanted to become a lawyer so she could continue her struggle against the occupation of the West Bank.
Ahed Tamimi, 17, became a hero...

GAZA: A ceasefire between Israel and Gaza's dominant Hamas Islamists appeared largely to be holding on Sunday, ending the most intensive flare-up in violence around the Palestinian enclave since a 2014 war.
In a day of fierce fighting on Saturday, Israel carried out dozens of air strikes in Gaza, killing...

TURNBERRY, Scotland: U.S. President Donald Trump said he had low expectations for the Monday summit with Kremlin chief Vladimir Putin just days after 12 Russian intelligence officers were charged by a federal grand jury for hacking the Democrats ahead of the 2016 election.
The summit, which comes at one of...

UNITED STATES: A Pakistani student Sabika Sheikh among ten people were killed and 11 others were injured when a student armed with a shotgun and a revolver opened fire at his Texas high school on Friday.
A Pakistani student Sabika Sheikh, studying in the US facilitated the Kennedy-Lugar Youth Exchange...

The US decision to reimpose sanctions on Iran could scare off European investors but oil-thirsty China may step into the void and ramp up business links with the country.
China, which is already Iran's top trade partner and one of its biggest buyers of crude, has signalled that it intends...

The United States officially opened its deeply controversial Jerusalem embassy on Monday in a ceremony that included a video address by President Donald Trump as deadly clashes broke out.
Trump told the ceremony that the United States remained committed to reaching a lasting Middle East peace, though the move of...